Many raised gardens, or containers, can be arranged to create an easily accessible, yet attractive arrangement.
With the use of wood planks, square foot gardening' puts everything within arm's reach.
With the options to build to whatever height, raised gardens create an easy, much more accessible alternative to gardening than a regular garden plot.
Whether it is a move or a just a simple change, sometimes we are forced to make adjustments to the way we do things. This applies to gardening. Sometimes you may move, losing your beautiful garden or just want to change your plants, causing you to have to alter your methods.
Recently, Tim Fine with the MSU Extension Office gave a presentation concerning alternative gardening methods. He showed alternative garden beds, which take up less space and increase the growing season.
One alternative is the use of raised beds, or ‘elevated gardens’. With the use of wood or stones, the whole garden can be elevated for easier access and better drainage. Raised beds can be built to your height, size, and shape. They can also be specified to your taste, depending on the materials you use to build them with. A major positive for this is that any soil or dirt can be added to the bed.
Along those same lines, you can use all containers. Whether it is pots or planter boxes, they can be arranged and the plants separated out for better growth. Some varieties of vegetables are specifically made for growth in containers, which provide you with fresh produce without taking up a lot of space. Growing in smaller amounts also prevents waste, ultimately saving money.
The main alternative, which is rather widely spoken about now, is square foot gardening. With the use of wood planks, this gardening system organizes the plants. With a four foot by four foot bed, everything is within an arm’s reach. It is called square foot gardening, as each separate section is one foot by one foot. This method practically eliminates all weeds and concentrates the plants closer together. Only certain vegetables can be used in this method, but the ones that can grow can be grown in numbers. Due to the rising popularity of this method, there are lots of helpful resources for those just beginning.
All these methods could have numerous gardens arranged around each other, making a large garden that is still easily accessible.
Reader Comments(1)
Rycke writes:
I have built a raised bed planter, but it was circular, built with blocks, and was beautiful, not just functional. I would never build squared wooden boxes. Rectangles are ugly and wood doesn't last. But then, I would much rather make beautiful curving paths; mulch the soil; edge it with cobbles; and plant in the mulch and soil, saving much more space than shown in the photos, and having much more soil available for my plants. The gravel in the top photo looks large, hard to walk on.
06/01/2013, 7:56 am